Why I wrote… Assisted Dying and Legal Change

The genesis for this book came out of my own personal experience. In 1993, after a postgraduate degree in Law, I was working as a law clerk to Mr Justice Frank Iacobucci when the Sue Rodriguez case reached the Supreme Court of Canada. My exposure then to the first attempt to strike down a criminal prohibition on assisted suicide using human rights was the start of my interest in legal change on assisted suicide and euthanasia. I am indebted to Mr Justice Iacobucci for that opportunity. Since that time, I have researched and written quite widely on legal issues at the end of life and in particular on assisted dying (euthanasia and assisted suicide). Before writing this book, I had published articles on the law governing euthanasia in the Netherlands and on the legal framework for end-of-life decision-making in France. I had also written about how rights were used to challenge criminal prohibitions on assisted suicide in the UK, Canada and the USA. I have been privileged to be a member of the St Christopher’s Hospice Clinical Ethics Committee since 2003, from which I have learnt immeasurably about the care of the dying and the ethical and legal problems faced by professionals in the field of palliative care. In 2004, I was invited to submit evidence to and testify before the House of Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill about the different legal regimes in jurisdictions which had permitted euthanasia and/or assisted suicide.